September 10, 1999

Sears kit houses are still around

By Tom Kelly
The Real Estate Advisor

There were wedding gowns and baby buggies. Suitcases and tombstones. Necklaces and hair brushes. And homes too. Just about everything on everybody's wish list was in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog. If Sears didn't have it, you didn't need it.

The quality of material was advertised as "the best in the world." Customers were "at perfect liberty to return goods" at the company's expense if they were dissatisfied or if they could get a better deal elsewhere.

Judging from the design of several old Puget Sound homes, many local residents were satisfied with the "catalog homes" that Sears shipped around the country. One of the homes, a 1907 residence perched on three quarters of an acre on a hill above Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island, is for sale for $249,000 -- about $248,000 more than the original cost of the home kit.

"The history of the home is fascinating," said Craig Clark, broker at Johansson-Clark Real Estate, the listing agency for the property. "And it only gets better with the stories that we've heard."

The property abuts a small creek that carries water away from Eagle Harbor at high tide. Reportedly, moonshine runners would roll their jugs on a cart to a dock at the water's edge. Small huts, river boats and steel tracks can still be seen just below the property leading to the creek.

"It's obviously hard to say what really happened in those days," Clark said. "But there were some characters living near the water in small shanties."

The value of this particular parcel is its view of Eagle Harbor, including the private marinas and the Seattle-Winslow ferry dock. While the two-bedroom, one and one/half bathroom house definitely has charm and a fireplace, the reality of "cozy" will only arrive with fresh ideas, paint and insulation.

A similar home was remodeled on Seattle's Capitol Hill by a group of neighbors who had identified Sears' "Modern Home No. 106" on Broadway Avenue East. The investment group, which said the house was built between 1906 and 1909, traced a remodel to the 1920s via work orders.

The Capitol Hill home also had its intriguing sidelights -- renters said they had seen "a friendly ghost" many times.

The old Sears mail-order homes came with optional labor and charges. However, most buyers decided to hire known local contractors or build the house themselves. Materials were delivered "within hauling distance of a railroad siding" and included a detailed instruction manual.

Sears' architects had definitely prepared for the novice builder because the explicit blueprints even showed the proper spacing between nails.

Richard Sears, a watch salesman, joined forces with his expert repairman, Alvah Roebuck, in 1886. Roebuck sold his interest to his partner in 1895 and was not associated with the company when Sears went on to mail-order Americans everything they needed from the cradle to the grave.

So, it came as no surprise in 1908 when the Chicago-based "mercantile institution" offered its first "Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans" which included a cozy, concrete block cottage for $710. After all, what better way to sell more molding, doors, hinges, sash weights and flooring than by actually selling the American dream by mail? The offering said it would save buyers one-third -- and very likely more -- over the cost of any conventionally built modest little house or high-priced mansion:

"Don't let any contracts, don't make any arrangements, don't give an architect an order for any plans until you have carefully considered the wonderful offers we make you in this book."

The Sears, Roebuck & Co. house book supplement was pulled from circulation decades ago.

The fat catalog, commonly known as "the big book," was discontinued six years ago. The company found out that we are more apt to purchase via "niche" product offerings. That's why we have so many catalog companies filling our mailboxes every day.

Richard Sears would have wanted another chance.

Previous columns:

• Feng shui analysis hits home, 09-03-1999
• New book shows the lighter side of lending, 08-27-1999
• A new way to hunt for a home, 08-20-1999
• Mortgage rates up, but why?, 08-13-1999
• Insurance changes apply to new loans, 07-30-1999
• Realtors debate Net's role, 07-23-1999
• Are too many millionaires ruining the area housing, 07-16-1999
• New tool in online property marketing, 07-02-1999